


Darcy The Gamer

by KalicoFox



Series: Darcy, The Gamer [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), 더 게이머 | The Gamer (Webcomic)
Genre: AU, BAMF Darcy, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, Saving the Day, The Gamer Darcy, constructive criticism NEEDED, darcy is badass, gen - Freeform, maybe plot, probably BAMF Jane, so not outlined
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:03:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3944707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KalicoFox/pseuds/KalicoFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing every goes as planned, and when Thor falls out of the sky, Darcy knows that her attempt to live a nice, normal life under the radar of the Abyss is completely shot.<br/>Hopefully she'll be able to get her act back together before something -else- comes up that needs skills she hasn't used in far too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It starts when she is sixteen.

Names, levels, stats... all available for her perusal. Languages are learned in the blink of an eye. Skills are created, tested, and abandoned as she gets bored.

All is fun and games, (heh) up until the point she'd wandered unknowingly into some weird pocket dimension thing and saw a bunch of guys in black robes attacking her best friend.

Her mistake wasn't in attacking them and saving her friend.

Her mistake was leaving them alive and expecting that to be the end of it.

The next time she saw black robes, her house was a roaring pillar of fire.

This time she left their broken, bleeding corpses on the concrete of the pocket dimension they'd tried to kidnap her in.

Darcy Lewis might not be the smartest chick around, but she does learn from her mistakes.

She graduates a year early, and heads to Culver, leaving behind the hometown that no longer held her home, or her family.

Darcy isn't the Gamer any more. Instead she dedicates herself to learning anti-scrying tactics, and a few multi-purpose healing techniques, then stops. She's in college now. No time for silly games.

And if she might have created a pocket dimension (which her weird power insisted on calling Instant Dungeons) full of low level black robes to vent her anger on, and in turn discovered that it made a really good source of cash? Well then, that just saved her from becoming a stripper and _really_ working through college.

Still, she's doing everything in her power to make herself as completely and totally normal as possible.

Three changes of major later, and she's standing in front of her advisor being informed that she needs six science credits, or she doesn't graduate. Darcy doesn't grind her teeth.

Instead, she starts scouring the campus website, looking for anyone, anything that'll get her those credits. Dr. Jane Foster seems like she will, with the added bonus that it looks like pretty much everyone on campus is either terrified of her, or thinks she's crazy _and_ is terrified of her. She needs an intern for a trip out to New Mexico for a few months of something that Darcy's brain helpfully translates to _'Science!'_

Darcy is the only applicant.

When tall blond and muscles crash lands in front of the car and is promptly hit with it, Darcy is, oddly enough, relieved. She'd been waiting for the weird to pop back up in her life. Now it has, and she feels the tension that comes from waiting for the other shoe to drop ease. Not for the first time, the taser she bought comes in handy.

What she Observes about the guy has her in shock, running mostly on autopilot as they get him to the hospital and she starts wrangling Jane into bed.

A god. A real life pagan god. And she tasered him.

Darcy whimpered slightly, staring at the pile of data she needed to go through before she could go to sleep.

Granted, it probably only worked because his power was sealed away, and wasn't _that_ a trip, but still. She was going to have to try really hard to avoid the smite-y-ness when he got his mojo back.

After that night, things got a bit blurry. There was hacking the DMV, trying to teach Thor basic social skills, jackbooted thugs stealing Jane's research- and Darcy's iPod, the warriors three, the robot o'doom, Thor's kinda death, and suddenly, it was over.

Thor was gone, without a single smite being smote. The town was half smouldering rubble, half stunned silence, and the jackbooted thugs were everywhere documenting damage or cataloguing bits of the robot o'doom. Darcy wasn't sure what to think, so she took refuge in bullying the secret agents who were returning Jane's research into helping her set up the equipment again. She was secretly proud of the way she'd made one of them cry on the second day after Thor had left.

The third day, Agent iPod-thief was back, looking around with mild eyes and an unassuming smile. Darcy bristled, but listened as Jane informed her that she (Jane) was taking Shield's funding, and would be working with/for them for the foreseeable future, but she (Darcy) should totally absolutely make sure that she (Jane) got an invite to Darcy's graduation.

And it hit her. That's right. College. The science credits which were the only things keeping her from graduating.

And somehow, in the whirlwind of NDA's, packing, crying, drinking, and celebrating, Darcy ended up back in her dorm room at Culver.

Left with the knowledge that even outside the Abyss, the world was a dark and dangerous place, Darcy firmed her nerve. She could do this. She'd just have to be smart about it. After all, it's not like using a public computer would give away too much, especially if she hit up an internet café instead of a library.

The less information she gave the Auction, the happier she'd be.

It was a quick trip. There were several internet cafés around campus, and she hit one that wasn't the closest, or the farthest from her apartment. A couple of minutes slaughtering black robes in an ID before going inside, and she had enough to pay for a couple of hours of browsing time.

Coffee was, of course, a given.

It took her all of twenty minutes browsing the Abyss Auction to realize that she was going to need a hell of a lot more money than she had if she wanted to buy anything off the site.

Groaning slightly, she pulled a pad of paper out and got started on a list.

Elemental summoning? Hells fucking yes.

Weaponry wasn't really that great of an idea, since she didn't know how to use anything, didn't have a teacher, and wasn't sure she'd be able to find a skill book. Until she did, she'd leave that be.

Casting and stealth seemed to be her best options, with stealth being a downright necessity if she didn't want to get caught and chained up in a mana farm somewhere, or used as some asshole's super powered sex slave.

The anti-scrying tattoo she'd gotten after she'd graduated high school seemed to work all right, but that didn't stop anyone who was just _looking_ at her.

So practising hiding, moving quietly, and being unnoticed was a huge priority.

Casting, on the other hand, needed her to have some basic idea to start with. Her mana pool seemed to increase when she put points into Intelligence, but putting points into Wisdom helped her recover it faster.

Dexterity would help keep her hidden better, she was pretty sure, but Charisma would let her talk her way out of trouble, which is something that was much more useful than sheer fighting skills in this day and age.

A wry smile twisted her lips as a pop up announced that her intelligence had increased by one for logical thinking.

She'd had a lot of those in the few years since she'd decided to act as though she were completely normal. Random increases for thinking outside the box, or running to get to class, or doing her homework. Thinking about it now though, she realized that she hadn't really checked her stats in far too long. Even when Thor had crash landed, she'd been more ready to run and hide than to stand and fight.

The realization shamed her, just a bit.

The old Darcy would have thrown her head back, laughed in the face of danger, and gone on to kick ass and take names.

The old Darcy, Darcy reminded herself, watched her parents burn to death in front of her because she was playing with things she didn't understand.

But... the new Darcy knew the risks, at least some of them. The new Darcy didn't have family, or even many close friends to get caught in the crossfire. There was Jane, but Jane was somewhere else, changing the world on Shield's dime. Maybe it was time the new Darcy let some of the old Darcy back in.

For a moment, Darcy watched her computer screen contemplatively, then smirked and whispered, just under her breath, "Status."

\-----

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally woke up with this story in my head, and managed to get this much of it down. Hope you like!  
> This hasn't been beta'd yet, just looked over three times by me. Let me know if anything too horrible pops up, yeah?


	2. Decisions, Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which nothing super important happens, but choices are made, and books are bought.

Darcy really wasn't sure where to start, once she'd made her choice. Oh sure, now she knows that she'd made thirty levels in the six years since she'd started college, which, thinking about it, seemed pretty damn good for not really doing a lot of grinding. Mostly she'd just fought Black Robes, or zombies, or ogres in the instant dungeons because it was a good way to get cash fast. She hadn't really given much thought to _leveling_.

Which meant that she hadn't allocated _any_ of her stat points. And truly, there was a ludicrous amount of them. Still, she had to ignore them for now, and focus on what she wanted to do, or be, or whatever the fuck.

Part of her just wanted to push it all away. After all, Thor was back in Asgard. The weirdness was over now. Done.

Except... well... Ever since Tony Stark's whole 'I am Iron Man' speech thing, the weird had more or less been crawling out of the woodwork.

First there was that weird guy with the glowing whips attacking Mr. Stark at some racetrack, and around the same time, there were reports of a weird green monster thing somewhere down south. Then Thor just drops out of the damn _sky_ , and while all of _his_ shit is going down, there's a giant green dude tearing shit up back at Culver! And somehow, a few days after the green guy vanishes, (good luck figuring _that_ out) he shows up in _Harlem_ of all places, with a friend. Or, apparently, not a friend, and together the two of them wreck a lot of shit.

So really, hoping the weirdness just... goes away, and never manages to find her again? Doesn't seem like that feasible of a plan.

So instead, Darcy shoved that little bit of her aside and starts to research.

Research, in this case, meant playing MMORPGs. Or reading through the Player's Manual for D&D. Or listening to some of her nerdier friends wax poetic about fighter builds vs mage builds, and melee vs ranged.

It took a while.

Still, it seemed to be worth it, because in the end, Darcy had finally figured out what she was. Something that seemed to completely and totally _fit_.

A Bard.

Someone who could bullshit with the best of them, encourage people by talking, and could cast spells that would make people like them better. Yeah. Darcy was quite a fan.

Now she just had to work out ways to cast those sort of spells or get those kinds of power with her own magic.

Back to the 'net café and the Abyss Auction website she went.

Surprisingly enough, there were quite a few books on sonic enchantments. Spellsongs for everything from making people sleep, to making things grow, to entreating an element to aid you. And then she had to pause.

Darcy _loved_ music. It was something she never went a day without. But... she couldn't sing. In fact, several times, her voice had been compared quite favorably to horny cats being slowly castrated. And that was favourable to the cats.

Scowling idly, she clicked around a bit, browsing through the spell books and glancing through the titles until one caught her eye and her mouth dropped open.

Squealing quietly, she pounced on it, clicking quickly through the buy screen and breathing a sigh of relief when her payment was quickly accepted under the anonymous buyer option.

Grinning wildly to herself, she glanced once more at the image of the book, _The Art of Teleportation_ , and grinned wildly at herself before closing the tab and going back to browsing.

Buying _Elements and Elementals_ and _Sword and Shield, Introductory Magical Defense and Offence_ brought her down to flat broke, but Darcy really didn't care. A few hours of running through instant dungeons would have her cash levels back up around normal.

A thought struck her, and she paused. She had literally piles of junk from fighting the boss monsters hundreds of times over the course of her college career. Ogre panties, bats, and hammers. Healing potions. Even staves and fancy hats. Most of the items even had magical properties. And she had just bought spell books off a website that was basically magic eBay.

An evil grin spread across her face, and Darcy cackled wildly as she exited the 'net café, ignoring the odd looks other people were giving her as she headed back to her dorm room.

She'd have to sort the staves out. If she remembered correctly, some of them had different abilities and she'd probably do well to keep one of each for herself.

The spell books arrived four days later in a nondescript box with no return address, and Darcy was thrilled. _The Art of Teleportation_ was a skill book, and she devoured that as soon as she laid hands on it, the same with the magical defense and offence book. The _Elements and Elementals_ book, however, was pure theory, which meant that she'd have to read it and try to apply it in real life, no shortcuts allowed.

Darcy pouted, but started trying to power through it in between sessions of killing things in instant dungeons and Skyping with Jane.

Before she even knew it, she was in her own flimsy black robe, a black cap on her head and a colorful tassel dangling just inside her field of vision.

When the caps and cheers filled the air, and people started to mill around, an arm thrown around Darcy's shoulder almost had her pulling her trusty baseball bat out of her inventory and clobbering whoever it was. Fortunately, she recognized the voice shrieking congratulations in her ear, and a wide smile broke across her face as she turned to hug Jane tightly.

"Janey! You came!"

Jane scowled playfully at her, bumping her with her hip. "Of course I did! I said I was going to, didn't I?"

Darcy grinned, "Yeah, you did. I just thought you'd get caught up in science and forget what day it was."

Jane opened her mouth, then shut it again, blushing slightly. "I might have told one of the interns to physically drag me out of the office if I forgot."

For a moment, Darcy just gaped at her friend, then she doubled over, laughing so hard that tears came to her eyes.

"Really Janey?"

Jane's embarrassed nod made Darcy fling her arms around her again.

"Thanks boss-lady. Seriously. What do you say we get the hell out of this mob and go find something to eat?" Jane nodded gratefully, and the two of them pushed and shoved their way through the crowd until they could finally breathe.

"Burgers sound good?" Darcy asked, her voice slightly muffled as she shucked the graduation robe and tossed it to one side with a slight huff.

"Sure." Jane replied, her tone slightly bemused as Darcy grabbed her arm and started dragging her off.

"Great, there's a Dickey Joe's nearby that does the best burgers and garlic cheese fries _ever._ Seriously. Your mouth will orgasm."

Darcy kept up a stream of chatter as she dragged Jane to the burger joint and up to the counter, pointing out her own favorites, and ordering, all in a stream of consciousness that had Jane grinning fondly at her former intern.

It wasn't until they were in a booth and halfway through their respective burgers that Jane dropped a metaphorical bombshell.

"I'd really like it if you came back to work for me."

Darcy dropped her burger. "What?"

Jane shifted awkwardly. "Well, it's just... The interns Shield gives me are great and everything, but they're not you, and I got used to having you around, and you were a wonderful intern, and OH! I could pay you now, and I know it's not really in your field of expertise, but please Darcy, it's just not the same without you around, and Erik will be leaving soon to work on a different project, and I-"

"Sure." Darcy said easily, picking her burger back up and taking a huge bite.

"know you do- wait, really? You will?" Jane's whole face lit up and Darcy's nod, and she flung herself across the table, hugging Darcy the best she could.

"Are you still out in the ass end of New Mexico?" Darcy asked, and Jane nodded vigorously.

"It's the best place to get readings, still. But we might end up doing some travelling. One of the other interns brought up the idea that it might be a good idea to check old monuments like Stonehenge. They figure if Thor is real, then those might have been built as sort of beacons. Places that would help the Bifrost connect more easily."

Darcy arched one eyebrow, thinking about it. "Well, that's an interesting theory."

Jane waved it away, "So yeah, we're waiting for approval to head over and take some readings. See if the atmospheric data has _any_ anomalies whatsoever."

Darcy took a swig of her soda, before saying cautiously, "It sounds like a long shot..."

"It is." Jane admitted, slumping slightly, "But it'll still be interesting."

Darcy nodded enthusiastically, and changed the subject, steering it toward something that wasn't likely to make Jane think of Thor and get all sad-faced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this happened.  
> Hooray for me.  
> And you, I guess. Um... Well, there should be a bit more action in the next chapter, though I'm not quite sure where it'll come from or where it'll go. Jane might find out, she might not. It all depends. Maybe summoning an elemental without a contract in place is a bad idea, or maybe not. I guess we'll see.


	3. Meditation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude.

Working for Jane was one long exercise in diplomacy. Darcy had, at one point, known this. Unfortunately, the introduction of three new interns from Shield had thrown off the dynamic slightly, leaving Darcy more at loose ends until she figured out that somehow, Shield had managed to find three people who were almost exactly like Jane when it came to feeding, watering, and generally taking care of themselves when something interesting was happening. Which, apparently, was always.

So 'Darcy; Jane's Assistant!' became 'Darcy; Scientist Wrangler Extraordinaire!' and soon she was forcing hot meals down four throats, making enough coffee to keep a truck stop operating smoothly, and generally playing house mom whenever she wasn't filing data, organizing Jane's pile of notes, or forcing someone to go to bed because "No, you cannot go another day without sleep. You just said that the cookie monster making fun of you because one of your calculations was wrong. You can check it in the morning; now SLEEP!".

Still, all wrangling aside, Darcy still had a fair amount of down time. Down time that gave her the opportunity to read the Elementals book, and try to apply the theory.

_'To make a contract with an elemental means having a deep understanding of the nature of its element. Water is not merely wet. Earth is not merely solid. Fire does not only burn. Air is not only for breathing, and so on. All elements are dangerous. All elements are beautiful. All elements are everywhere._

_Humans are made up of all elements, but many people lean more toward one element than any other. Elementals of that element may be more willing to form a contract with them than elementals that are directly opposed to it. Meditation may make the user's proclivities clear, if the user's_ _natural ability does not.'_

Darcy was, to that end, once again sitting behind her desk in an out of the way corner of the lab, book in her lap. Taking one last glance around the lab to see if she was needed (she wasn't) Darcy let her eyes fall closed and tried again to meditate.

In through the nose-two-three. Hold-two-three. Out through the mouth-two-three.

In and hold and out.

In... hold... out...

The sounds from the lab fell away, acknowledged, but ignored.

Thoughts were gently pushed to the side as Darcy focused solely on her breathing.

Her awareness moved inward, the constant _lub-dub_ of her heart; a loud drumbeat that she gently, slowly, pushed to the back of her mind. The sound echoed through her being; a slow, steady beat that brought to mind a vague feeling of peace.

Darcy fell into herself.

And there was light.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.  
> I originally started writing this for no particular reason. It popped out of my fingers because of a dream I had. It had no plot, and it wasn't -meant- to have a plot.  
> However, it's starting to have a plot, and the plot is something I don't like to read, and I have no experience writing. I was torn between giving up to stay in my comfy little bubble, or continuing and growing as a writer.  
> You can guess what I chose.  
> This story will continue. It will stay freeform, and I will go with the flow it demands, rather than trying to force it into the shape I want it to be. But I will need feedback. I have NO experience writing the kind of thing this is taking me to. Constructive criticism will be welcomed, and gladly.  
> Thanks for reading, and I hope I can keep doing an all right job of writing something you'll like to keep reading.


	4. On the way to Norway!

-Two weeks later-

"I still," Darcy huffed, her voice raised so that Jane could hear her, "don't get why we have to pack up and go all the way out to the ass end of Norway right freaking now."

She glared at the boxes piled haphazardly in the back of the moving van.

"Like I said," Jane replied, stumping out of the lab with a box stuffed to bursting with odds and ends. "Shield picked up some anomalous readings that looked similar to the ones we picked up right before Thor came."

Jane tossed the box carelessly into the van, and Darcy rolled her eyes as several small shiny things bounced out and rolled toward the front of the van.

"And it's not the ass end of Norway, it's Tromsø."

Darcy rolled her eyes again. "Right. Tromsø. Got it. Is this everything?"

Jane nodded, worrying her lower lip between her teeth thoughtfully.

"Good," Darcy said firmly, "'Cause I do not wanna have to carry around any more heavy-ass boxes."

A quick hop let her grab the dangling rope that pulled down the rolling door, and she made doubly sure to lock the door in place as Jane headed towards the front of the truck.

"I'm driving!" Darcy called after her retreating boss, and got a scoff in return.

"No you're not!"

"Then I'm picking the music!"

"We're just going to the storage place to dump this stuff off!" Jane shouted back, and Darcy grinned as she walked up to the passenger side of the truck.

"So?" She asked, pulling the door open, "We're still going somewhere, it's still a half hour drive, and if you're driving, I'm playing some actual good music."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is important, and I need to get it out there.  
> Due to health issues, my husband has lost his job.  
> A job that I had lined up decided that I wasn’t qualified enough, (probably due to being a housewife for five years). We’ve burned through every penny of savings we had over the last two months, trying to make rent and pay bills while I’ve been trying to find a job. So far I’ve had no luck.  
> At the beginning of November, we will be evicted from our apartment. This is me, asking for help. This is the one and only time I will be asking for this help here, and I wouldn’t be asking if we had any other options. We don’t.  
> Anyone who donates can ask for a new chapter on any of my stories, or a oneshot for any of the fandoms in my bookmarked list, and it will be written as soon as possible.  
> If you want to help, [please go here.](https://www.gofundme.com/rentandausedwinnie)  
> Thank you all,  
> KalicoFox

**Author's Note:**

> I literally woke up with this story in my head, and managed to get this much of it down. Hope you like!  
> This hasn't been beta'd yet, just looked over three times by me. Let me know if anything too horrible pops up, yeah?


End file.
